"Must-see! Mishory cuts his documentary almost like a thriller, gradually revealing information...the documentary equivalent of Radu Jude’s Afermin!, winner of this year’s Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Director." -- Stefan Dobroiu, CineuropaOne of the top ten films of 2015 -- Cine Maldito"Masterful! A work of deep personal meaning. With its lingering shots of the village’s asbestos roofs and abandoned Jewish graveyard, and its scoreless soundtrack, Absent is a haunting experience." -- Tal Kra-Oz, Tablet Magazine

For over a hundred years, Mărculeşti was a vibrant Jewish agricultural and mercantile community in Bessarabia (now present-day Moldova). In July 1941, the village was the site of an unimaginable atrocity. Seventy-four years later, few speak clearly or honestly about what happened. Absent is a cinematic portrait of the ghost village of Mărculeşti, its current inhabitants, and their very complex relationship to their own history. Working entirely on location, filmmaker Matthew Mishory documents one of Europe's poorest, most remote, and least-visited places.